Movie Guide

March 16, 2007

Chris Rock stars as a New York financier who has everything – house, car, beautiful family. When an old flame (Kerry Washington) turns up, she soon gets him in trouble with his wife, his CEO, and the police. He can't quite say yes to her, nor can he give her a definite no. It's good to see Rock in a semiserious role for once, but this glossy comedy of temptation overcome, based on the minor French classic, "Chloé in the Afternoon," lacks any raison d'être. Profanity and obviousness are no substitute for the wit and subtle insights of the original film. Grade:C–– M.K. Terrell

Based on the bestselling novel by Jim Stoval, "The Ultimate Gift" is the latest commercial offering from Fox Faith, which specializes in uplifting Christian-themed fare (although the explicit Christian symbology here is kept to a minimum). Drew Fuller plays a spoiled-brat playboy who stands to inherit a fortune from his recently deceased grandfather, Red Stevens (James Garner), if he follows a mandated course of self-improvement. He learns the value of hard work and ultimately becomes the caregiver Red hoped he would be. Garner is good, and so is Brian Dennehy as a crusty ranch owner; Abigail Breslin, playing a leukemia patient, demonstrates that she was not a one-note wonder in "Little Miss Sunshine." But the overall effect is cloying and didactic – at the end of the movie the life lessons are actually itemized for us. Grade:B–– Peter Rainer

The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Not Rated)

Director: Ken Loach. With Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney. (127 min.)

Ken Loach's intermittently gripping but overlong political drama is about the Irish uprising against British rule in the 1920s and centers on two brothers, Teddy (Padraic Delaney), a Republican who loathes the British Black and Tans, and Damien (Cillian Murphy), a doctor who initially takes a more conciliatory approach to the Troubles. Inevitably the bloodshed changes his mind. Loach has a long and honored career as a political filmmaker, and "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" is more accessible – i.e. conventional – than most of his other films. It also is more schematic: the British come across almost without exception as monsters. Grade:B– P.R.